You Need Wisdom, Not Strength

Last Thursday when I started my five-mile bike to work it was 2° Fahrenheit (-17° Celsius). This is a new record for me. But it wasn’t hard to do. I did not get cold.

It made me think that so often in life what we need is not strength but wisdom.

When I first started biking as an adult whenever it got below 55° (13° Celsius), I would put my bike up. Why get cold? I don’t like to get cold! Even more than the average person, I like to be warm.

But I started to get wiser. I could bike when it got cooler with the right jacket and gloves. I didn’t care if it was 40° or even 30°.

Then I realized that with long underwear, biking mittens and wool socks that 20° is no problem.

Now I know with neoprene shoe covers and studded tires, that snow and 2° is no problem. I was comfortable biking on Thursday, considerably more comfortable than when I bike and it’s 90° (32° Celsius).

I still don’t like to get cold, but I did not get cold. I did not bike on a snowy 2° morning because I was stronger or more determined or more macho or whatever. I am simply wiser than I used to be.

What I want to say to you (and actually to myself) is that things that I didn’t think were possible became possible not because I became stronger but because I became, over time, wiser.

What do you think is impossible for you now? Is it getting fit, loosing weight, accomplishing a big goal or life dream?

Maybe it’s not that you are weak but that you need to learn. Maybe what you and I need is not more strength from God but more wisdom from Him. Maybe what we need to pray for and seek is not strength, but an openness to learn.